The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of
a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to
the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle
or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements,
and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals,
have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has
steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made
in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country,
rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor,
is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase
of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal
hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts
of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for
our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to
me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and
gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the
whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens
in every part of the United States, and also those who are at
sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart
and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of
Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth
in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up
the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances
and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national
perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those
who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the
lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and
fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal
the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace,
harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Note: transcript unedited
